


It Only Feels Like the First Time

by mereypaige



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Author Admits They Have Never Been To A Frat Party, But They Have Been To Many A Michigan Coney Island And They Miss Them, M/M, Yuuri and Phichit in Detroit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-23 19:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21086819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mereypaige/pseuds/mereypaige
Summary: Yuuri is acting weird. Weirder then usual. Like talk on the phone for twelve hours straight in Russian weird. Like upgrade all his jumps to quads a week before the Eric Bompard weird. Phichit is determined to get the bottom of it.





	It Only Feels Like the First Time

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by an art work by jotadepes over on tumblr. There's a direct link in the work, or you can copy and paste from here: https://jotadepes.tumblr.com/post/156601547410
> 
> Title inspired by the song “First Time" by Carly Rae Jepsen. 
> 
> Warning for mild injury of an elderly person.

It starts, like all things do, at a frat party.

Phichit is well on his way to comfortably sloshed when Yuuri stumbles out of the crowd and into the kitchen. Phichit extricates himself from his, ahem, very engrossing conversation with a communications major and waves. 

“Yuuri!” he calls. “You okay?” 

Yuuri looks up at him, eyes wide. His hair is tangled and his glasses are askew. He looks close to tears. 

“Phichit!” he sobs, and trips into Phichit’s side. 

“Woah, Yuuri?!” Phichit grabs at Yuuri and wraps a supporting arm around his midsection. Communications Major lumbers over and puts a hand on Phichit’s shoulder. 

“Dude, is he ok?”

“Not sure, hot stuff,” Phichit says. “Gimme a sec.” To Yuuri he says, “Hey, Yuuri, you wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“It all is!” he says, pressing closer to Phichit. “Everything’s wrong! The year’s wrong!” 

“What, 2015 not doing it for you?” Phichit asks. “That’s fair, but I can’t do a whole lot to fix that.” This is not the right thing to say. Yuuri slumps forward into the kitchen counter and sobs. 

“Dude,” Communications Major says, “he is not ok.”

“No, hot stuff,” Phichit says, rubbing Yuuri’s back and frowning. “No, he’s not.”

Phichit gets Yuuri home and into bed. Yuuri’s eyes are red-rimmed from crying. He curls in on himself in his bed. 

“It’s all wrong Phichit,” he says. “I’m trapped here.”

“Shh, Yuuri, it’s alright,” Phichit murmurs, running a careful hand through Yuuri’s hair. “Everything will be alright in the morning.”

He leaves when Yuuri’s breathing finally evens out to something like sleep. Hopefully things will be back to normal in the morning. 

***

Things are not back to normal in the morning. Yuuri is up before him, using up all their hot water in an hour-long shower when Phichit finally stumbles out of bed at noon. 

By the time Phichit has had enough coffee to consider talking, Yuuri is already back in his room. Not that unusual, for Yuuri’s standards, but when Phichit passes by his door half an hour later, he can hear Yuuri talking to someone. On the phone. Yuuri does not talk on the phone. Yuuri texts. Sometimes. 

Phichit is a good roommate. Phichit respects Yuuri’s privacy. So he waits a full hour before he gives in and hunches beside Yuuri’s locked bedroom door to eavesdrop. Through the door he can hear Yuuri speaking softly in Russian. That isn’t weird, Russian Language is Yuuri’s major (and minor, somehow). But who does Yuuri know that he can talk with them in Russian for two hours straight? Phichit doesn’t think he’s heard Yuuri speak that long to his own parents. Phichit retreats to his room and his homework, perplexed. 

“Who were you talking to?” Phichit asks when Yuuri finally emerges that evening to make a smoothie. 

“No one,” Yuuri says, too quickly, shoveling half a bag of frozen mango into their blender. “I have a speaking exam after the Eric Bombard. Sorry, could you hear me? I’ll be quieter.” And before Phichit can respond Yuuri turns on the blender, drowning out any chance of a reply. 

It gets weirder from there. 

*** 

On Monday, Phichit watches Yuuri actually eat an entire meal for breakfast. He’s still reeling when they get to practice, and almost misses Yuuri marching straight up to Celestino and telling him that he’s had a breakthrough with his programs, and what he really needs is the latest footage of his skates, a video camera, and an empty studio. 

“Yuuri,” Celestino says, “if you feel that’s what you need, then fine, but I’m going to need to see you on the ice sometime today. We’re too far into competition for you to be wasting rink time.”

“Yes, Coach,” Yuuri says, and off he goes. Celestino looks over at Phichit. He narrows his eyebrows.

“Did something happen over the weekend that I need to know about?”

Phichit flashes briefly back to Yuuri sobbing into Communication Major’s chest while Phichit takes photos. (Communication Major has _not _texted back, by the way - rude.)

“Nope!” Phichit says. “I guess Scary Competition Yuuri is kicking in early this year. I gotta go warm up now, bye!” He flees to the locker room, Celestino frowning behind him. 

Four hours later, Yuuri is back in time for jump practice. Phichit has to pick his jaw up off the floor along with everyone else when Yuuri nails every single jump he attempts. What is _happening_. 

“You’re supposed to be hungover!” Phichit hisses at him in the locker rooms after. “What kind of monster metabolism do you have?”

Yuuri just smiles, and shrugs. 

“Just feels good to be on the ice again.” 

Yuuri shuts himself in his room again when they get home. 

“Russian exam,” he says, and when Phichit goes to bed at eleven, he can still hear Yuuri speaking softly through the wall. 

***

On Tuesday, Phichit arrives back from classes and the gym to find Yuuri sprawled out on the couch, twitching. 

“You ok, Yuuri?” Phichit asks, rounding the couch to stand in front of him. 

“I can’t believe I have to do it _again_,” Yuuri says, voice flat. “Of all the things to relive, it had to be my senior thesis.”

“Did your computer crash or something?” Phichit asks. 

“Something like that,” Yuuri sighs. “God I just want it to be Friday.”

“What’s happening on Friday? You hate Fridays.” Fridays are when Celestino makes them do endurance training. And makes them perform their programs in front of everyone. For public critique. Yuuri _hates_ Fridays. Phichit narrows his eyes. 

“What’s on Friday, Yuuri?”

“Oh? Uh, haha, nothing, just, y’know, stuff,” Yuuri babbles. He sits up from the couch as if to escape. 

“Oh, no you don’t!” Phichit says, and lunges after him. Yuuri squeaks and dodges. “I will tickle this information out of you, don’t think I won’t!” He grabs at Yuuri again and Yuuri twists away with undignified squawk. 

“It’s Victor!” he shouts, and takes partial cover behind the table. His face is beet red. “I, uh, bought another Victor poster! It comes on Friday!” And with that he flees to his bedroom. 

Something is up. 

***

Wednesday is another full day at the rink. Yuuri is gone when Phichit wakes up, which is impressive, because Phichit wakes up at five. When he gets to the rink, Yuuri is already there, twisting through the step sequence of his short program. Phichit rushes through changing out of his sweats and sneaks over to the bleachers to watch.

The program is different, somehow. Phichit can’t quite put his finger on it. The choreography is the same, all the elements in the same spot as they were last week. It’s Yuuri himself who’s different. His movements are more powerful, more assured, and he sweeps out of the final turn of his step sequence and gathers speed for his jump. 

Phichit is on his feet before realizes he’s moved. 

Yuuri leaps, and Phichit screams. 

“What the-” Yuuri lands, wobbles, and lands ass over toe-pick. 

“Phichit!” he groans, rubbing his butt. “Don’t scare me like that!” 

“Oh my god, Yuuri!” Phichit yells. “A _quad flip_? When did you learn to do that?”

“I’d like to know as well,” says a voice from Phichit’s right. Yuuri goes pale. Phichit whirls to see Celestino standing at the boards, looking murderous. 

“Coach,” Yuuri says, still sitting on the ice. “Uh, good morning.”

The lecture from Celestino is epic. Phichit films the whole thing, every so often looking over his phone to make thumbs up signs at Yuuri. Yuuri mouths something rude and then snaps his head back to Celestino where he paces, yelling. _No jumping without supervision, how many times do I have to tell you? What if one of you had injured yourselves? _He pauses for breath, and then_, A quad flip, Yuuri? Really? You’ve had a quad flip in your repertoire and you didn’t think to tell me?_

“It just happened, Coach,” Yuuri says, again and again. “I wasn’t thinking. I’ve never landed it before, honest.”

Eventually the rest of their teammates trickle in, and Celestino runs out of steam. Which a final dark look at Yuuri he jogs off to corral the juniors onto the ice for warm-ups. Phichit grabs Yuuri and hauls him off into a corner. 

“So really, how’d you do it? You been practicing at night?”

Yuuri squirms, looking nervous. 

“I wish I could tell you, Phichit,” he says, shifting from side to side. “But I can’t explain it. But I promise I’ll tell you soon, okay?”

“Fine,” Phichit grumbles. “Keep your secrets.” 

In the afternoon Phichit sneaks out of his session in the weight room to spy on Yuuri’s one-on-one session with Celestino. Phichit wasn’t imagining it this morning, Yuuri _is_ skating differently. Yuuri placed second in Skate America back in October, and scored a personal best as well, but this is beyond anything Phichit has seen from him before. Its magnetic. He slinks back into the weight room to finish his workout, but he’s so distracted he almost walks into three separate machines. Something happened at that party Saturday night. Yuuri is different. And Phichit is going to find out why. 

***

Thursday is boring. Yuuri is out the door for dance practice before Phichit has brushed his teeth, and then classes and Yuuri’s weekly crying session in the library mean that Phichit doesn’t see him until nearly ten that night. He tries snooping around Yuuri’s room while he’s gone, but nothing stands out. There are notes strewn all over his desk, but they’re in Japanese or completely illegible English. He gives up and goes back to his own room. 

Yuuri lets himself into Phichit’s room when he gets home, and instead of hello just says, “Phichit, I need to talk to you.”

Phichit looks up from where he’s been trying to get his hamsters to run through his free program’s step sequence, complete with commentary. 

“Sure thing," Phichit says, getting up and placing Elle, Cher and Regina back in their enclosure. “What’s up?” 

Yuuri walks over and sits on Phichit’s bed. He lets out a long, slow breath. 

“So you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been acting…different,” Yuuri says, glancing sideways at Phichit.

“Well, duh,” Phichit says. He sits down at his desk chair and scoots over to sit in front of Yuuri. “I’m your best friend, of course I’d notice. Something happened at that party, right?”

“Aw,” Yuuri says, and his expression lightens. “And yeah, you’re right, something did happen. At the, um, at the party. Something big. And I don’t know how to tell you without sounding crazy.”

“I knew it!” Phichit says. “Ok, but you _have _to tell me, Yuuri. Please, I’ve been dying to know!”

“I can’t,” Yuuri says, and at least he looks sorry about it. Phichit tries his best not to look disappointed. “Um, I need something first? Something that will prove that I’m not crazy. And it’ll be here tomorrow.”

“The Victor poster?” Phichit asks, confused. 

“Oh god,” Yuuri says, blushing. “No, it’s uh, something else. But you’ll like it. I think. You just have to promise not to freak out.”

“I can absolutely not promise that,” Phichit says, and Yuuri laughs. 

***

Celestino kicks their asses at practice on Friday. He makes them do sprints down the ice with sit spins at one end and double axels at the other. Yuuri makes everyone practically cream their pants with his free program during group critique. He’s added another jump, upgraded them all to quads, and lands the final quad loop with only one hand up. No one has any critique to give, least of all Phichit, whose only contribution is a protracted groan when he realizes he forgot to film any of it for posterity. 

Eventually Celestino lets them go for the day, and Yuuri is out of there in seconds, with a shouted promise of “I’ll text you!” thrown over his shoulder to Phichit on his way out the door. 

Phichit limps home (he fell out of jump during his run-through and landed on his tailbone), and wastes the time obsessively refreshing his Instagram feed every five minutes. 

He’s almost ready to give up when his phone buzzes. 

“Finally!” he grumbles, and opens LINE to a message from Yuuri. 

_At the club you like downtown. Come meet us. _

Phichit can hardly believe it. Yuuri? At a club? And _with_ someone? Phichit is out the door and sprinting for his Uber before he remembers that the Victor poster never arrived. He hopes Yuuri isn’t disappointed. 

The club is full to bursting, and Phichit fidgets in the line to get in. He triple checks his eyeliner and reapplies his lip gloss, and by the time he’s flashing his fake ID to the bouncer and pushing his way onto the crowded dance floor he’s jittery all over with repressed excitement. 

_Here_, he texts Yuuri, trying to scan the crowd. _Where r u???_ And then he sees a flash of brilliant silver hair, hears a voice yelling “Phichit!” so loud it drowns out the music for a moment, and then someone tall and very good looking is sweeping him into a crushing hug. 

“Woah!” he yells. “Hey, let go, you piece of-” He looks up, and his protests die in his throat. He’s staring into the heart-shaped smile of Victor Nikiforov. “Oh my god,” he says, and backs up into the bar. 

“Vitja!” someone yells, and then Yuuri is there, at Victor _freaking_ Nikiforov’s elbow, grinning at Phichit. “You’re here!” he says, joyful and definitely drunk. “And you’ve met Vitja!” He gestures to Victor. Victor Nikiforov. _Vitja. _

“Hi!” Victor says. 

“I need a drink,” Phichit says and turns to grab the bartender. 

Phichit is drunk. He’s only had one drink, but it’s the only explanation for what he’s seeing: Yuuri and Victor Nikiforov sitting in the booth across from him. Canoodling. 

They’d ditched the club pretty quick - Phichit needs answers to about six million questions, and he can’t do that and watch Yuuri dance with 4-time consecutive world champion and longtime celebrity crush VICTOR NIKIFOROV at the same time. Unfortunately. So they’d decamped to a Coney Island down the street. 

“Ok, so, explain to me how you know Victor? Because, and no offense, last time I checked you followed him under a fake Instagram account just in case you did something embarrassing, like liking a photo more than two weeks old.”

“Simple, really!” says Victor, “It was ti-” Yuuri clamps a hand over Victor’s mouth. Fascinating. 

“Vitja, we were going to ease into it, remember?”

“Ease into what?” Phichit asks. “Yuuri, ease into what? What is going on?”

“Time travel!” Victor shouts, pushing Yuuri’s hand away. “It’s time travel.”

Their booth falls into shocked silence. Then Yuuri puts his face in both hands and groans. 

“This is why I wanted to ease into it! God we sound insane. Just completely, totally insane. But, uh, yeah. It’s time travel.” He looks up at Phichit, expression sober, and Phichit knows he’s telling the truth. 

“Ok,” Phichit says. “Ok. This explains a lot. Maybe. Like the quad flip. Yeah. And the Russian. And the breakdown at the party.”

“Yes!” Yuuri says, looking relieved that Phichit believes him. “Yeah, Victor and I got a little tipsy celebrating out fiftieth, and we slipped and fell into the hot spring at Yuutopia, and when I opened my eyes Victor was gone, and I was sitting on a couch in the hockey frat, and it was 2015 again.”

“Woah, ok, slow down,” Phichit says. "You fell into a hot spring and then- hold on, your _fiftieth_? You’re _married_?!”

Yuuri breaks into a grin. He tugs Victor closer. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah we are.”

“And Yuuri is the one who proposed!” Victor says. “He does it next year, actually!” 

This is all too much. 

“Ok,” Phichit says. “Enough explanations! We’re staying here to eat our food, but then we are going back to that club, and I am going to ignore the fact that mentally you are both really really old, and then we’re going to dance, and it’s going to be beautiful.”

At that moment their food arrives, and Phichit dives in. His best friend is married to Victor Nikiforov! Time travel be dammed, this is going to be _fun._

***

Victor is set to leave on Monday morning, and Phichit figures its only right that they end the weekend at another frat party. Yuuri doesn’t seem to appreciate the symmetry, but Victor does, and while Yuuri may be able to individually say no to Phichit or Victor, the moment they combine forces he gives up. 

The hockey frat is still recovering from last week, but the engineering frat has pulled something together, and the three of them walk in the front door on Saturday night to a wall of sound. 

“Wow!” Victor says. “It’s disgusting!”

“Welcome to college, dear,” Yuuri says. 

“Weirdly sticky dance floor,” Phichit says, pushing them forward. “Now.”

An hour later and Phichit has taken about ninety photos of Victor and Yuuri kissing and uploaded them to Instagram, _plus_ he’s reconnected with Hot Stuff Communications Major. The evening can only improve. 

Two hours later and Phichit is hiding out in the bathroom with the shower on to disguise the sounds of music thumping up from downstairs. Yuuri and Victor are…elsewhere.

“No Ciao Ciao, I promise we’re not still at that party!” he says into his phone, fumbling with the shower knob. “No that’s not Victor Nikiforov! No! He’s uh, a doppelganger! We met him on Friday! At the library!” He turns and sits down on the edge of the bathtub. “And yes, we’re home now, I was about to get in the shower when you called!” He fidgets, trying to get comfortable. “Yes, I’ll delete the photos. Yes, I’ll do it right now. No, I’m not drunk!”

He fidgets again, and his butt slips off the narrow edge of the tub and he flails backwards. He has the time to think, _at least I lived long enough to see my best friend married _before his head cracks on something hard and his world goes black. 

*** 

“Phichit.”

Someone is saying his name. His head hurts. Dangit, he’s too old for this.

“Phichit, are you ok?”

He’s soaking wet. Why is he soaking wet?

“Phichit, we’re taking you to the hospital, ok?”

Someone lifts him, and he opens his eyes. 

He’s sitting on the rock floor of the men’s bath in Yuutopia. He feels woozy, but he looks around anyway. A couple feet away, Yuuri and Victor are being helped to their feet by their granddaughter Nami. 

He turns to look at the person tugging at his arms and sees Nami’s mother, Hana. 

“What happened?” he croaks. 

“You’re all idiots, is what happened!” Hana grouses. “Honestly, getting drunk and then falling into the bath? You’re lucky none of you died! Now get up, you’re going to the hospital.”

“I had the strangest dream,” Phichit says, wincing as his bones creak when he moves to stand. Seriously, when did he get this old?

“Phichit!” Victor calls from across the bath. No man should look that good at eighty. It is completely unfair. “Phichit, Yuuri was telling me about the dream he had. He says you went back in time!”

“No, I didn’t!” Phichit calls back. “It was you and Yuuri who went back!”

“What did you dream about, grandpa?” Nami asks. 

“I dreamed that Chris trained a herd of reindeer to follow him around on the ice and offer him hot chocolate at key points in his free program.”

“You all had weird dreams!” Hana shouts. “Now go get in the car!”

Phichit laughs and holds on to Hana as she guides him out of the bath and through the resort to the family's car port.

He pulls out his phone when he gets in the car and thumbs idly to his Archived app. His Instagram archive has been updated in the last hour. He frowns and opens it. There, dated November 7th, 2015, is a [photo](https://jotadepes.tumblr.com/post/156601547410). He runs his fingers over the blurred faces on his screen and smiles. 

_Some dream_, he thinks, and pockets his phone. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am not the first person to use the “Yuuri and Victor go back in time and screw with everyone” trope, and I certainly won’t be the last.


End file.
